Alfred Poulet wrote the book on foreign bodies found in people's bodies. Literally. His two-volume set from 1880, titled "A Treatise on Foreign Bodies in Surgical Practice," is up for auction on eBay. Click the images above to see larger. From the item description:
* The books describe, for example, a case of a woman who had been experiencing vaginal bleeding for several months, but which failed to respond to conventional treatments. After direct observation, the patient was found to have a live leech in the vagina [after removal of the leech, the doctor recommended her to use an underwear or a cork stopper when going to the river for a bathe]. Leech died of starvation after removal.
* There are other cases in which spoons, cups, needles, glass bottles, hair brushes, avocado pits, beans, snails, or a variety of insects, arachnids, or fish were removed from different orifices of the human body.
A Treatise on Foreign Bodies in Surgical Practice (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)
